EARLY RELATIONAL HEALTH PROGRAM

Training Description

A comprehensive, part-time, hybrid, 18-month training program ​
in early relational health research, theory, assessment, and relationship-based interventions, designed for interdisciplinary professionals ranging in their scope of clinical/research practice, and systems of care,  including: ​

• Neurodevelopmental models of risk and resilience, effects of trauma on early relationships and early brain development ​
  
  
• Therapeutic interventions with infants and families (including dyadic and family systems psychotherapies, the therapeutic use of videotape with families, and evidence-based models supporting early relational health and development, such as Circle of Security, Child Parent Psychotherapy, Theraplay®, DIR® Floortime, Child First, and more ​
  
  
• Infant/early childhood observation and relationship-based assessment tools and measures. Specialized Trainings in NBO, NCAST Parent-Child Interaction Scales, Theraplay Marschak Interaction Method, DC:0-5, and many other diagnostic tools ​
  
  
• Research, diagnosis and multidisciplinary approaches to treating infant regulatory disorders, social communication disorders, anxiety disorders in young children, post-traumatic stress disorder, and the effects of trauma on early relationships and early brain development ​
  
  
• Perinatal mood and anxiety disorders and therapeutic interventions supporting the transition to parenthood​
  
  
• Diversity Informed Tenets of IECMH; examining implicit bias in developmental science; diversity, equity and inclusion in IECMH workforce development and service delivery models; social determinants of health in a relational context​
  
  
• Understanding infant and early childhood systems of care; child welfare system; court-based models of intervention ​
  
  
• Reflective practice/facilitated integration of course materials with individuals’ practice  ​
  
  
• Individualized support from Core Faculty in the development of an Integrated Learning Project: Fellows design a project in second year of program to explore their creative ideas for how to implement change in systems and clinical practices supporting infants, young children and families​
  
  
• Networking and career-development opportunities with a world-wide network of over 250 inter-disciplinary alumni in 23 states and 26 countries, and over 40 ERH faculty​
  
  
• The ERH Fellowship fulfills the Alliance for the Advancement of Infant Mental Health training and reflective supervision/consultation requirements for the credential: Endorsement for Culturally Sensitive, Relationship-Focused Practice Promoting Infant & Early Childhood Mental Health® as an Infant/Early Childhood Mental Health Specialist (Category III) and the Infant/Early Childhood Mental Health Mentor (Category IV). 

HOW TO APPLY : 2024 - 2026 Application Coming Soon! 

For inquiries and to be added to our mailing list please email us at: erh@umassmed.edu

 Core Faculty and Leadership:

Ed Tronick, PhD, Chief Faculty is a developmental and clinical psychologist. Dr. Tronick is Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. Formerly he was an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and the University Distinguished Professor at UMass Boston. He is a past member of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, the Boston Process of Change Group, and a Founder of the Touchpoints program. He created the Early Relational Health Fellowship at the Chan Medical School and the Infant-Parent Mental Health Fellowship at UC Davis. He developed the Newborn Behavioral Assessment Scale and the Touchpoints Project with T.B. Brazelton. With Barry Lester he developed the NICU Network Neurobehavioral Assessment Scale. He has developed norms for the neurobehavior of clinically healthy newborns, and currently is developing individualized interventions for preterm and at-risk infants based on their neurobehavior. Dr.Tronick developed the Still-Face Paradigm and recently the Caretaker Acute Stress Paradigm. His current research focuses on NIRS and MRI responses to the Still-face and memory for the still-face, including epigenetic processes affecting behavior. He has worked on epidemiologic data sets to understand the nature of the responses to questions related to depression and help seeking of women in different ethnic and racial groups. Recently he has begun research on brain development and parenting of micro-Lemurs. He developed conceptual models based in dynamic systems theory for dyadic infant-mother (adult) interactions, including the Mutual Regulation Model and the Caretaker Buffer-Transducer Model. He has published more than 300 scientific articles and 8 books, several hundred photographs, and has appeared on national radio and television programs. He lectures on the Still-face, trauma, maternal depression and infant neurobehavior to world-wide clinical audiences. His research has been continuously funded by NICHD and NSF.

 Dorothy T. Richardson, PhD, IECMH-E®, Executive Director, is a Clinical and Developmental Psychologist, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at UMass Chan Medical School, Executive Director of the Early Relational Health Program in the Lifeline for Families Center, and Director of the UMass Chan Fellowship in Early Relational Health. Dr. Richardson has worked with young children and their families for over 30 years in a teaching, research and clinical capacity. An early career in neuroscience and psychiatry research led to her interest in early childhood development in the context of family relationships, early childcare settings and the developmental trajectories of risk and resilience.

 She has research training at NIH in Developmental Psychopathology, and Child and Adult Psychiatry, including Perinatal Mental Health, and Developmental Medicine training at Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals (MGH, Children’s Hospital and Cambridge Hospital). In 2003, Dr. Richardson founded the first community-based outpatient infant-parent mental health clinic in the Boston area, The Rice Center for Young Children and Families at the Boston Institute for Psychotherapy and subsequently at The Home for Little Wanderers, where she served as Clinical Director for 7 years and continued to  supervise and train psychologists and social workers to provide relationship-based clinical interventions to families with young children, and pregnant and post-partum mothers with mood disorders and the integration of sensory-motor interventions with relationship-based parent-child psychotherapies for 20 years.  Dr. Richardson has served on a number of state advisory committees on Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health, including serving as President of MassAIMH, Birth to Six (Massachusetts’ Chapter of the World Association of Infant Mental Health). She co-developed, with Dr. Ed Tronick and Marilyn Davillier, the UMass Boston Infant Parent Mental Health Postgraduate Certificate Program – now at UMass Chan Medical School as the Fellowship in Early Relational Health - where she trains an international group of interdisciplinary clinicians (pediatrics, nursing, social work, psychology, psychiatry, occupational therapy, and early childhood development specialists) in infant and early childhood developmental research, and relationship-based assessment and interventions. Dr. Richardson currently serves as a consultant to several home visiting programs, community-based behavioral health settings, early care and education settings, and programs integrating infant/early childhood/parental mental health within the pediatric setting. She maintains a private practice specializing in developmental and relationship-based interventions with families with children under the age of six who are dealing with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, and infant/early childhood disorders of behavior, communication, mood, adoption and trauma, but also offers support to families for typical developmental questions and concerns and support for parent-child relationships. Endorsed as an Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Clinical Mentor, Dr. Richardson provides Reflective Consultation both individually and in small groups to clinicians internationally. Dr. Richardson earned her Masters’ in Education, in Developmental Psychology, from Harvard University Graduate School of Education and her Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Boston University.    

Marilyn R. Davillier, LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who has worked with infants, toddlers, children, and their families, in a teaching, research or clinical capacity for over 40 years. What began as a career in the Montessori method of pre-school education led to extensive research experience in Behavioral Pediatrics. In this capacity, she worked extensively with the psychological tools and measures relevant to infant and child development and co-authored several papers on the long-range developmental outcomes of preterm and drug-exposed infants. Additional post-licensure trainings include: The Brazelton Touchpoints Model of Child Development, The Napa Infant-Parent Mental Health Post-Graduate Fellowship, Perry’s Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics, Ogden’s Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Downing’s Video Intervention Therapy (VIT), Sandplay Therapy, and Mindfulness Meditation Training.

Ms. Davillier is on the Faculty in the Fellowship in Early Relational Health, Lifeline for Families Center, Department of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at the UMass Chan Medical School. This fellowship is a nationally acclaimed two-year intensive interdisciplinary fellowship for licensed professionals whose mandate it is to treat the social, emotional and relational derailments that can arise in families with children ages birth to five years. This fellowship is developmental in orientation, multi-disciplinary in focus, and developed as a primary public health preventive intervention aimed to increase awareness and understanding of the critical role of early relationship support to child development and family well-being.

Ms. Davillier maintains a private practice in Boston that specializes in the parent-child dyadic model of treatment for families with young children under the age of six years of age who are dealing with disorders of behavior, regulation, communication, mood, adoption and trauma. Related therapeutic services also include: Parent Consultation, Family Therapy, and Play/Art/Sandtray therapy for elementary and middle-school aged children.

 Claudia M. Gold, MD is a pediatrician and writer who practiced general and behavioral pediatrics for over 20 years and now specializes in early childhood mental health. While working on the front lines in a busy rural practice, she "discovered" the world of research and knowledge in the field of infant mental health through her studies with the Berkshire Psychoanalytic Institute in the early 2000's. The experience led to a profound transformation of her clinical work with families. She has devoted her professional life to spreading this knowledge through writing, teaching, and public speaking. She is on the faculty of the Early Relational Health fellowship at UMass Chan Medical School and the Brazelton Institute at Boston Children’s Hospital. 

She developed an infant-parent mental health program at the Austen Riggs Center, which led to creation of the Hello It’s Me Project, a program supporting parent-infant relationships in high-need, low resourced communities, of which she is the Executive Director. Dr. Gold has extensive experience with families hard hit by the opioid crisis in her community in Western Massachusetts, and currently works as a clinician with Volunteers in Medicine, Berkshires serving a primarily immigrant population.  

Dr. Gold speaks frequently to a variety of audiences including parents and professionals. Her most recent book, The Power of Discord: Why the Ups and downs of Relationships are the Secret to Building Intimacy, Resilience and Trust co-authored with Ed Tronick, was released in June 2020. Her other books include The Developmental Science of Early Childhood (2017), The Silenced Child (2016), and Keeping Your Child in Mind (2011) A fifth book Getting to Know You: Lessons in Early Relational Health from Infants and Caregivers will be published by Teachers College Press (Spring 2025.)   Dr. Gold received her BA from the University of Chicago and MD from U of C Pritzker School of Medicine.

Alexandra Murray Harrison MD a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute in Adult and Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis, an Associate Professor Part Time of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, and on the Core Faculty of the Fellowship in Early Relational Health at UMass Chan Medical School. Dr. Harrison’s clinical and academic interests focus on development across the lifespan, and include therapeutic action in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, Autism, the use of videotape in child evaluation and treatment, and supporting the caregiving relationship. Dr. Harrison is co-founder and CEO a non-profit, Supporting Child Caregivers, https://supportingchildcaregivers.org, that has as its mission offering training and educational support to caregivers of children and their families throughout the globe. Dr. Harrison has publications in the areas of child analysis, therapeutic action, and infant mental health, and has lectured extensively in the U.S. and internationally.

 Silvia Juarez Marrazzo, LCSW, NCPsyA Originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Silvia’s work as an educator, child parent psychotherapist and clinical social worker has been centered on a deep love and respect for the internal world of the child. In 2010, Silvia discovered, through the deeply transformative experience at the Infant Parent Mental Health Fellowship at the University of Massachusetts, led by Dr. Ed Tronick that creating "cuentos," or short illustrated stories for children, could give a powerful voice to the Latino-American immigrant mothers with whom she has worked for the last twenty-five years. She published her first bilingual cuento, "Mommy, tell me, how you got here?” in 2013. This book creates a dialogue that helps these mothers remember, share, and embrace their untold stories with their children. In 2014, Silvia expanded this story in her second bilingual cuento, “Mommy, tell me, why did you come here?”

In 2022, she published her third bilingual cuento, “Mommy, Why Am I Superhero Too?”, which follows an immigrant child’s wondering about his changing world in times of the COVID-19 pandemic. Silvia has written and illustrated many “cuentos,” inspired by the courage, love, and hope of the immigrant families she works with. Some of them will be published; some of them will be used only in the intimacy of her psychotherapeutic work and some of them will remain in her heart. Her cuentos have been well received internationally.

Silvia was a Senior Clinician and Supervisor for Child First Yale-Bridgeport Hospital and Senior Faculty for Child First, Inc. from 2005 to 2016. In 2016, Silvia joined the Early Childhood Consultation Partnership at ABH, Connecticut, bringing Infant Mental Health to the Early Care and Education Settings through her role as Assistant Program Manager. In 2018, Silvia became the Clinical Director for Chances for Children-NY (CFC-NY), Bronx New York, becoming its Co-Executive Director Clinical in 2021.

Silvia has been a Faculty for the Master Program in Social Work at Southern Connecticut State University since 2001. She was also a Faculty for the Bachelor Program in Social Work at Sacred Heart University from 2001 to 2010. Since 2016, she is core faculty at Early Relational Health Fellowship at UMASS CHAN, Massachusetts (Former Infant-Parent Mental health Post-Graduate Certificate Program – UMASS) lead by Dr. Dorothy Richardson. Silvia became Adjunct Faculty at the Department of Early Care and Education at Brooklyn College CUNY in 2019.

Silvia was the Connecticut Infant Mental Health Association 2014 Jane C. Bourns Award recipient for Excellence and Exemplary Service to Young Children and their Families in the Field of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health.

 Aditi Subramaniam, LMHC, R-DMT, IECMH-E®, is a licensed mental health clinician and registered movement psychotherapist with more than twenty years of experience in the field of mental health, in India and Boston. She currently works as the Associate Director of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health at the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (MSPCC) leading statewide infant and early childhood mental health workforce development efforts and a partnership between MSPCC and the Massachusetts Association for Infant Mental Health (MassAIMH) focused on enhancing, diversifying, and supporting the infant and early childhood mental health workforce to improve access to services for children age birth – 6 and their families. Under her leadership, Ms. Subramaniam collaborates with partners across the state to address gaps and opportunities in workforce needs in the early childhood system to result in better outcomes for all. Ms. Subramaniam is both a clinician at heart and a reflective systems leader, committed to justice-informed policy, implementation, and practice toward creating equitable systems to meet the needs of Massachusetts’ youngest children and their families. Her areas of interest include reflective practice; community and family-focused initiatives; workforce and systems development; healing-centered care; and the integration of the expressive arts in psychotherapy in working with families and systems. 

She is also a national trainer at the Brazelton Institute at Boston Children’s Hospital, for the Newborn Behavioral Observation (NBO), and at the Brazelton Touchpoints Center as a National Touchpoints trainer. Ms. Subramaniam is a graduate of the ERH Fellowship (Infant-Parent Mental Health Post-Graduate Fellowship Program) and a graduate of Infant Observation at the Infant-Parent Training Institute of Jewish Family & Children’s Service. She serves as core faculty at the Early Relational Health Fellowship at UMass Chan Medical. Her experience includes dyadic early childhood clinical work, reflective supervision, family engagement, and working with systems to build capacity in justice-informed early childhood mental health. She is a ZeroToThree Fellow (2022-2024), is a certified DC 0-5 trainer, and is endorsed as an Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Mentor- Clinical®.

The principles and practices of liberation and the arts as healing are foundational in her everyday work and lens. She lives in Boston, MA with her husband and daughter. She is a trained Indian classical and folk dancer and continues to enjoy dancing, yoga, and making art. She is humbled by parenting and learning from the wonders of childhood with her daughter.

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